


penelope

by casualbird



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Canon-Typical Sexism, Character Study, Feminism, Gen, Implied Canon-Typical Sexual Violence, Knighthood, Women Being Awesome, Women Supporting Women, i have no idea what this is, ingrid becomes a better feminist, takes place after their paralogue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-11
Updated: 2019-09-11
Packaged: 2020-10-14 20:49:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20607098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/casualbird/pseuds/casualbird
Summary: Ingrid had always learned, had always taught herself to swallow fear. To burnish down the things that made her small, that made her anything other than a member of the rank and file, a knight, standing stalwart with all the king’s men.Dorothea took those things and sharpened them.





	penelope

Yesterday Dorothea had stood, hip cocked, on the wasted stone of Ailell, daring the enemy to come closer.

Yesterday Dorothea had poured hellfire out of her hands, scorched to the bone the hands that would have the audacity to touch her Ingrid.

Her Ingrid, she had been very clear on that. She spoke the words so sweetly, in her lilting cheerful tone, but there was no doubting their weight. They fell with all the gravity of a meteor, a hammer’s blow, backed by the force of every woman who had ever consoled a sister done wrong, who had ever lied straight-faced to get away, who had ever said no.

Ingrid’s grandmother had told her once a legend of old, about a widow besieged by worthless men, vultures who tore at her dead husband’s power, his fortune.

She said to them, _let me first weave a shroud for my father-in-law, for he is not long for the world. It would be wrong to bury him without one, given his prestige. When I have finished it, by my troth, I will marry. _

And each day, Ingrid’s grandmother had told her, the widow wove, and each night she tore her work away.

Ingrid remembered thinking ill of her subterfuge, asked her grandmother why the widow could not do the honest thing, could not simply say no.

After all, to be honest was the knightly thing to do.

As the years passed on, Ingrid more than understood. She felt, sometimes, that she had become the widow herself, making excuses on excuses to rebuff the proposals that came as inexorably as the seasons. _Let me wait until my eighteenth birthday. Let me wait until I’ve finished school._ She wove, and she tore out. It was a cycle-- a dance, a game, a way of life.

Dorothea lived it too. She wove. She tore out. Only, on the wretched fields of Ailell, she added one step more.

She took her ragged threads, and she wrapped them round her knuckles like a fighter. She set them as trip wires. She wrapped them like silk scarves around the necks of Ingrid’s pursuers and with a dancer’s grace she _strangled_ them.

She had always learned, had always taught herself to swallow fear. To burnish down the things that made her small, that made her anything other than a member of the rank and file, a knight, standing stalwart with all the king’s men.

Dorothea took those things and sharpened them. Wore them like medals, like jewelry-- Ingrid had never understood the preoccupation with baubles, with ruffles, scents, or pigments. Thought them counterintuitive--if one wished to avoid the clumsy, forceful posturing of men, why invite it?

But it wasn’t an invitation, and it wasn’t ignorance.

Dorothea listened to the things men said about her. She felt their hands grasping at her arms. And, however she could, she vanquished them. She lied to them, she threatened them, she sliced them on her shining polished edges.

And not for some old ink-and-vellum virtue. Not for chastity or chivalry. Not for ideals.

For dignity. Because she deserved it.

And that, Ingrid thought, was knightly too.

**Author's Note:**

> hey! thanks for reading. i pounded this out for reasons unknown to me at 1 am, when i was trying to write something gay. i hope this serves as an acceptable substitute for the Lesbian Content i had planned on writing.
> 
> shoutout to everyone from the discord who yelled at me to write this, and extra props to everyone who offered to look it over for me!
> 
> any and all feedback is much appreciated!!!


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